1“When anyone is found slain, lying in the field in the land which יהוה your Elohim is giving you to possess, and it is not known who struck him,

2then your elders and your judges shall go out, and they shall measure the distance from the slain man to the cities round about.

3“And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled with a yoke,

4and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, which is neither ploughed nor sown, and they shall break the heifer’s neck there in the wadi.

5“And the priests, the sons of Lĕwi, shall come near, for יהוה your Elohim has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the Name of יהוה, and by their mouth every strife and every stroke is tried.

6“And let all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi.

7“And they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it.

8O יהוה, forgive Your people Yisra’ĕl, whom You have ransomed, and do not allow innocent blood in the midst of Your people Yisra’ĕl.’ And the blood-guilt shall be pardoned to them.

9“Thus you purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst when you do what is right in the eyes of יהוה.

10When you go out to fight against your enemies, and יהוה your Elohim shall give them into your hand, and you shall take them captive,”

11and shall see among the captives a woman fair of form, and shall delight in her and take her for your wife,

12then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails,

13and put aside the mantle of her captivity, and shall dwell in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a month of days. And after that you shall go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

14“And it shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go at her desire, but you do not sell her at all for silver. Do not treat her harshly, since you have humbled her.

15When a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and the first-born son is of her who is unloved,”

16then it shall be, on the day he makes his sons to inherit his possessions, he is not allowed to treat the son of the beloved wife as first-born in the face of the son of the unloved, who is truly the first-born.

17“But he is to acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the first-born by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength – the right of the first-born is his.

18When a man has a wayward and rebellious son who is not listening to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have disciplined him, does not listen to them,”

19then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city,

20and shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is wayward and rebellious. He is not listening to our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

21“Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. Thus you shall purge the evil from your midst. And let all Yisra’ĕl hear, and fear.

22“And when a man has committed a sin worthy of death, then he shall be put to death and you shall hang him on a tree.

23“Let his body not remain overnight on the tree, for you shall certainly bury him the same day – for he who is hanged is accursed of Elohim – so that you do not defile the land which יהוה your Elohim is giving you as an inheritance.